princeofpersiafandomcom-20200213-history
Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame
Prince of Persia 2: The Shadow and the Flame is an action-adventure platformer game released by Brøderbund in 1993. It is the sequel to Prince of Persia. Story The Shadow and the Flame is set eleven days after the events of Prince of Persia. During this period, the Prince was hailed as a hero who defeated the evil Jaffar. He turns down all riches and instead asks for the Princess's hand in marriage as his reward, to which the Sultan of Persia reluctantly agrees. The game begins as the Prince enters the royal courts of the palace. Before he enters, however, his appearance changes into that of a beggar. Nobody recognizes him and when he attempts to speak with the Princess, a man who shares his appearance (Jaffar, who is magically disguised) emerges from the shadows, ordering him to be thrown out. With guards pursuing him, the Prince jumps through a window and flees the city by way of a ship. Falling asleep on the ship, the Prince dreams of a mysterious woman who asks the Prince to come to her. At this time, the ship is struck by lightning, cast by Jaffar. When the Prince regains consciousness, he finds himself on the shore of a foreign island. He comes to a cave full of reanimated human skeletons that fight him. He finally escapes on a Flying Carpet. In the meantime, however, in Persia, Jaffar seizes the throne in the guise of the prince.Prince of Persia: The Shadow and the FlamePrincess: "Dear Father: My heart is broken. The Prince has betrayed your trust. You must return with your army and take back your throne." The Princess falls ill under Jaffar's spell of gradual death.Mysterious woman: "Prince! Your bride is dying. Waste no more time. Come to me!" The flying carpet takes the Prince to the ruins of an old city filled with screaming ghosts, snakes and traps. Arriving at what appears to have once been a throne room, the Prince loses consciousness and the mysterious woman, revealed to be his mother, appears again. She explains that the Prince is of a royal lineage and the only survivor of the massacre by "armies of darkness". She implores to be avenged.Mysterious woman: "Once, this was a great city, ruled by a son of kings. He was slain and his palace laid waste by the armies of darkness. I died at his side. You alone were spared, my son! I gave you up, that you might live. This was your father's sword. Avenge us! Avenge us!" The Prince rides a magical horse to a red temple, inhabited by warrior monks wearing bird headdresses. There, he finds that the shadow, created in the events of the original game, can now leave his body at his will. He wields his shadow to obtain the magic flame of the temple, at which point the bird warriors kneel before him. He flies back to Persia on the magic horse and confronts Jaffar. With the shadow and the flame, the Prince burns Jaffar, killing him for good. With Jaffar's spell broken, the Princess awakens. The Prince orders the former Vizier's ashes to be scattered. The game ends on a cliffhanger when an old witch is shown watching the happy couple through a crystal ball. Sequel According to Jordan Mechner, the engineer behind the game, the plot of the old witch and the "armies of darkness" were set to be resolved in a sequel, which never came.Revisiting The Shadow and the Flame Gameplay From a gameplay viewpoint, it is strongly similar to the first Prince of Persia. The character explores various deadly areas by running, jumping, crawling, avoiding traps, solving puzzles and drinking magic potions. Prince of Persia 2, however, is more combat-heavy than its predecessor. In the first game, enemies appear only occasionally and are always alone, while in the sequel, up to four enemies may appear at once, sometimes flanking the player, and may even be instantly replaced by reinforcements when they are killed. As in Prince of Persia, the trick is to complete the game under a strict time limit that passes in real time. Lives are unlimited, but time cannot be regained except by reverting to a previously saved game. In other areas, more significant improvements have been made. The graphics are far more complex than the simple look of the game's predecessor, the areas explored are larger, and the variety of backdrops is greater. Ports Titus Software ported the game to the Super NES and released it in 1996. Due to some missing features, stages and even glitches, it is considered an inferior port. Softkey released a Collectors Edition for PC CD in 1999 which featured the first 2 games plus movie material of the making of Prince of Persia 3D. On August 11, 2006, drx of Hidden Palace, a ROM-specialized website, released the long lost Mega Drive version, ported by Microïds and with a planned release in 1996 by Psygnosis, but finally cancelled in an almost complete state. The game can also be unlocked in the Xbox NTSC version of Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time''by finding a secret area. The GameCube, PlayStation 2 and Xbox PAL versions of the game lack Prince of Persia 2, with that secret area unlocking the original Prince of Persia early instead. The PC version lacks the secret area entirely. The makers of ''Prince of Persia Classic hinted that they may remake the game in 3D for the XBLA along with other side-scrolling games. Remake On July 25, 2013 a high-definition remake of the game was made available for iOS and Android mobile devices. The game includes options for both virtual buttons and gesture-based controls. References }} Notes Series Navigation Category:Games Category:Prince of Persia (Original Canon)